Circuit Board

I am fascinated by the historical intersection of early tech with craft. In the late 1960s, companies such as Fairchild Semiconductor and even the NASA Apollo missions relied on craftswomen—including Navajo weavers on Shiprock reservation in New Mexico—to assemble and construct circuit boards and computer memory modules. In other words, the most advanced tech in the world was being made by craftswomen, yet the largely-accepted hierarchy valuing tech far above craft persists to this day.

The Circuit Board series (2016–present) explores the tension between these assumptions by contrasting male-dominated tech world motifs via the gendered skills of so-called “women’s work.” That electronic circuit boards connect and conduct power only heightens the metaphor.